Over a period of some years, we have been developing our gardens here and what began as lavender and flowerbeds has expanded into Potagers, a French term for vegetable patch.
Herbs mingle with vegetables, cleansing teas and edible flowers. Greenhouses are stocked full of sprouting micro-greens.
It began from the difficulty of sourcing truly fresh ingredients. Travelling time and ferry travel can lessen the quality from suppliers across the water. We had the land, and we started to think: why not make these gardens productive as well as beautiful? Why not walk out each morning and pick your ingredients fresh for the day? That way we could grow the unusual items that we want but that are not available, because there was no demand for them. Commercially they may not be viable, but we can grow these things for ourselves, we will be able to grow enough for our own needs, and experiment, trial new strains, plant heirloom varieties that are just not available. The concept was exciting, infectious and a sense of urgency engulfed our hearts. 
Diggers arrived. Planting beds were formed. Compost was purchased. Purchased? Yes, purchased. We were not composting then. That was where the next initiative arose from. Compost, and more compost - was trucked in. Compost breaks down, and then you need to buy more compost for the next season. Meanwhile, all of our waste was being trucked away, in plastic bags and taken to the tip. It just didn't make sense.
Gardens need compost and restaurants produce a lot of organic waste. All those potato peelings, outer cabbage leaves, coffee grounds, the list goes on. The vineyard produces it's own bounty of organic waste also. We talked to the chefs, the waiters and all of our support staff. Could we organise a system to separate our waste to make compost? It took a little while to instigate the system but now we run like a well oiled machine. Waste is composted, only to be returned to the soil to regenerate a new flush of herbs and vegetables, picked from the potager to your plate. It' a sustainable system that works for the environment but has enriched our lives in so many ways and we feel very proud of this whole new cycle that we have created.
It started as a little experiment. It took a while to instigate change.
It took a while to organise systems - it took some organisation - but
now, it is an entrenched way of life at Mudbrick.
Reducing our environmental footprint has been a very rewarding
challenge and has not been without disappointments and frustrations,
but now we can comfortably say that we have been successfully
composting, recycling and re-using our resources for some years now.
It is a sign of the times when people stand over piles of compost,
admiring a mound of decomposing green waste. Mudbrick recently hosted
the Waste Resource Trust composting seminar and was used as a model of
how a commercial enterprise can successfully trim and re-use their
waste successfully.
